Artist K T Arun is obsessed with butterflies and digitally creates psychedelic versions of them on canvas
Artist K T Arun is obsessed with butterflies and digitally creates psychedelic versions of them on canvas
Enter this charming gallery in a beautiful heritage house and the sight that awaits you is hardly something of the past. Dim red lights, trance music in the backdrop and black canvases with LED like colours could more easily remind you of a club than an art show.
On exhibition here is Qwerty Visions, a display of digital art by K T Arun. Arun who holds a day job as a creative director with advertising agency Ogilvy has pursued art as passion from the age of 16. "Art was always a passion. I would paint but also wanted to take up advertising which I felt was an extension of creativity and would give me the time for all else. Things turned out a lot different later though," he says. The show displays 24 works, all on black canvas except one and has predominantly recurring butterflies, in different colours and shapes.
Talking about butterflies as an influence he says, "It is very interesting how butterflies undergo an entire process of metamorphosis for a life of three days", he tells us. "The butterfly also has a lot of other symbolic significances, like it is similar to the seventh out of the eight chakras of the human body", he adds. The works part of this exhibition are created digitally through a mix of colours and designs, some of which have also been modified using a base created through paint. Talking about art taking a digital turn and moving away from actual paint palettes, Arun in quick to respond, "A computer or any digital aid can only modify not create.
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It is easy to say a computer has an undo option, the truth is oil paints and water colours have options of undoing or covering up too. Everything here depends on the artist's choice". Digital art and manual art are here to co-exist even though there might be resistance right now he believes. "This is almost like the initial resistance digital cameras received by photographers. The rules remain the same, only the mode changes. What is beautiful will certainly be identified. Beauty at the end of the day is what makes living worthwhile", says Arun.
All the works are created on square frames and some have idols underlying the digitally modified colours and lines. Particularly striking is one titled Nataraj, with a figurine of the god overlapped with a series of chakras focusing energy at a centre point and placed alone in a room. "Squares direct energy at a single central focal point and that is why I tend to use a square base more often", he says. Another piece, a half recovered version with bright orange and shades of black, with an idol superimposed with colours.
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"This is what I saw when I died, I was clinically dead for three minutes once and moving fast towards a light. I did not see any tunnel though, the one which people who have faces near death experiences talk about", Arun says.
At: Rococo Gallery, Rest House Road
On: October 12, 9 am to 9 pm
Call: 4098 6205
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